With a (thousand) Song(s) in my Heart

I know a lot of song lyrics.

Not, mind you, useful song lyrics. I can, for instance, sing the Oscar Meyer baloney song straight through. The 1970's version of the Burger King song, "Hold the pickle hold the lettuce..." Since I had the albums, I know pretty much every lyric to songs from "Oklahoma", "The Sound of Music", and "The Wizard of Oz". Because my formative years were the 1970's, I know a whole lot of lyrics from that era. All the Eagles hits, Elton John, "Grease", Doobie Brothers, you get the picture.

Also, because my parents were country music fans in the 1970's, and I was forced as a child to ride in the car with them and listen to said music, I have a pretty wide ranging knowledge of country songs from that era. (And, to be honest, there was some good stuff like Johnny Cash, and Merle Haggard.)

Then there are the hymns. Yep, know most of those (protestant ones) too.

Although he can't carry a tune, the S-Man is sort of a natural "medley-ist". Which means sometimes, on long road trips or when we are trapped in a boring setting for a length of time together which, let's face it, happens all too often, he'll start trying to sing "I Gotta Be Me" which will morph into, "My Way" and somehow then tragically swerve into "Night and Day" which will careen into the SNL Bill Murray version of "Star Wars". It's all done about half a note flat with lots of finger snapping.

Yah. Welcome to my world. (...won't you come on in....)

And that is all yet another of my incredibly long, way-too-much-information ways to just tell you that we have something of a musical sensibility (albeit lopsided, annoying, and frequently off key) going on around here.

And so, maybe it's not too surprising that, at some point, (and I'm not telling you when) in the last few years, everything started reminding me of a song.

For instance, I frequently found myself in a situation with a certain person who was...let's see...how to put this...how about: completely full of shit. Yah. Completely full of shit! That's accurate.

Now, this person, we'll call him, "Hal", was nearly constantly spreading this incredibly stupid line of B.S. pretty much everywhere he went. I mean this guy would tell the most outrageous stories and, thing is, people would actually believe him...which would, of course, in my suseptible musical state prompt me to sing...

Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle dazzle 'em
Show 'em the first rate scorcerer you are

Long as you keep 'em way off balanace
How can they spot you got no talent?!

Razzle dazzle 'em
And they'll make you a star!

Yep, there's actually a song for most every occasion, I've found.

Eventually, though, I got tired of "Hal". I even, after a while, got tired of singing the song, fun and accurate though it was. It was getting to be a real waste of my life to be near the B.S.

To be honest? It smelled. Really bad. In fact, many people before me (good people) had been overcome and fled the stench.

And so I had a conversation with someone. Someone who could, shall we say, eradicate the B.S. And while this person understood the problem, for whatever reason, this person decided the best thing would be to keep on doing what they had been doing all along. And that is put up with the really bad smell for a while longer.

They were going too keep on, they said.

Keep on.

And that's when it happened.

From the furthest, dimmest recesses of the overly large section of my brain labeled "Useless Songs & Scary Jingles", a rusty old door swung slowly open and, quietly at first, I began hearing these lyrics:

We're gonna keep on
keep on
keep on....

Where, where had I heard this before?

We're gonna keep on...

And then it hit me: The Brady Bunch. Of course! The Keep On song!

The bad costumes! The inane lyrics! The scary cheerfulness! The cross-eyed optimism!

We're gonna keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on dancing all through the night.
We're gonna keep on, keep on, keep on doing it right
We're gonna keep on, keep on , keep on movin
Gonna keep on, keep on, keep on grooving
Keep on singing and dancing all through the night

I guess the conversation sort went on without me after that. Because I was too busy trying not to burst right out into the song right then and there.

Eventually, I went home and told The S-Man about the song (he had actually never heard it before). But I sang him a few bars, he caught the vibe, and for weeks afterward we would give each other a look and then suddenly and without warning together start singing:

We're gonna keep on, keep on, keep on,....

This singing on our part would be always accompanied by us making sort of a choo-choo chugging circular motion with our fists while keeping our arms close to our bodies.

Eventually, it became code for somebody doing something stupid, especially CONTINUING to do something stupid. Like, we're watching TV and George Bush starts talking about the war...immediately we look at each other:

We're gonna keep on, keep on, keep on...

I simply cannot adequately convey the mileage we've gotten out of this bit.

There was only one fly in the ointment. And that is that the S-Man had never actually experienced the full sort of horror of the actual song for himself.

(Wait for it...) and then one day, I was strolling around YouTube and I found it. I FOUND IT. There it was in all it's low quality fringy outfit glory. The Brady Bunch "Keep On" song. Have I mentioned? I HEART YOUTUBE?

And, so ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present The Keep On Song. (I'm not sure if it will appear from YouTube before or after this post, I hope after). I highly recommend you file it away for future reference any time you get the bad knews that someone is going to persist in doing something really stupid. I promise you, it will totally help to picture that person in a bright orange fringy outfit and sing to yourself:

We're gonna keep on
keep on
keep on...

It helps to throw in that choo-choo motion I talked about, too.

The bad news? You may be unable to get this song out of your mind after this.

Ever.

(sorry.)